Our View: Email? We don’t have any email

Published: Wednesday, April 23, 2014 at 04:21 PM.

There are two big problems with Gov. Rick Scott’s argument that current and former state employees, not his administration, are the “custodians” of emails and text messages from personal accounts even if they involve state business.

That cockeyed policy was articulated last month in a court filing related to an ongoing dispute over Florida’s Sunshine Laws. The governor’s assistant general counsel said the administration “does not have control over employees’ private accounts, and devices, and therefore it does not search those accounts and devices for public records.” The filing said state employees and ex-employees are “the records custodians of public business contained on private accounts and devices.”

The first problem is that government employees are not supposed to conduct government business on personal “accounts and devices,” period. Scott spokesman John Tupps told The Associated Press that employees aren’t allowed to use personal email accounts for state business and are discouraged from using text messages. Such practices have been forbidden locally as well. In 2009, a court order required that each Walton County commissioner “use only his or her official county email account when transacting official business.”

Christening state employees the “custodians” of public records done on private email accounts gives this weaselly activity an air of legitimacy. Bad idea. The second problem is much worse. If state workers are in charge of public records in their private accounts, and if the Scott administration shrugs off all responsibility — which is what it wants to do — those records are effectively beyond the public’s reach.

Taxpayers seeking certain records would have to approach individual state employees and make requests. The employees might have to be taken to court.

Said Barbara Petersen of the First Amendment Foundation: “This is, for all practical purposes, an insurmountable barrier to the constitutional right of access.” Central to the concept of public records is that such records must be easy for the public to find and examine. The Scott administration’s get-it-from-the-employees policy makes hash of that idea.

The administration ought to reassert its control over how public records are assembled, how they’re kept and who keeps them. Right now, it looks as if “private accounts and devices” are a convenient hiding place for records somebody doesn’t want us to see.

There are two big problems with Gov. Rick Scott’s argument that current and former state employees, not his administration, are the “custodians” of emails and text messages from personal accounts even if they involve state business.

That cockeyed policy was articulated last month in a court filing related to an ongoing dispute over Florida’s Sunshine Laws. The governor’s assistant general counsel said the administration “does not have control over employees’ private accounts, and devices, and therefore it does not search those accounts and devices for public records.” The filing said state employees and ex-employees are “the records custodians of public business contained on private accounts and devices.”

The first problem is that government employees are not supposed to conduct government business on personal “accounts and devices,” period.
Scott spokesman John Tupps told The Associated Press that employees aren’t allowed to use personal email accounts for state business and are discouraged from using text messages. Such practices have been forbidden locally as well. In 2009, a court order required that each Walton County commissioner “use only his or her official county email account when transacting official business.”

Christening state employees the “custodians” of public records done on private email accounts gives this weaselly activity an air of legitimacy. Bad idea.
The second problem is much worse. If state workers are in charge of public records in their private accounts, and if the Scott administration shrugs off all responsibility — which is what it wants to do — those records are effectively beyond the public’s reach.

Taxpayers seeking certain records would have to approach individual state employees and make requests. The employees might have to be taken to court.

Said Barbara Petersen of the First Amendment Foundation: “This is, for all practical purposes, an insurmountable barrier to the constitutional right of access.”
Central to the concept of public records is that such records must be easy for the public to find and examine. The Scott administration’s get-it-from-the-employees policy makes hash of that idea.

The administration ought to reassert its control over how public records are assembled, how they’re kept and who keeps them. Right now, it looks as if “private accounts and devices” are a convenient hiding place for records somebody doesn’t want us to see.